"The Next Time You Listen to Some of Your Favorite Groups from the ’60s, Please Don’t Be Upset"

"The Wrecking Crew was not supposed to attract attention. Groups like the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Monkees and many others didn’t care to point out why they sounded so much better on records than on the road. But Wrecking Crew members could work miracles, like the time when, with only three minutes’ worth of studio time allotted them, they played a first-take, no-glitch version of 'The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.' As Roy Halee, Simon and Garfunkel’s engineer and co-producer, once said of a top Wrecking Crew bassist: 'You never have to stop the tape because of a mistake by Joe Osborn. There just aren’t any.'"

Janet Maslin in The New York Times reviews Kent Hartman's The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret.